How Often Should You Renovate Your Home?

Making the decision to renovate your home is an exciting, and sometimes stressful, process. While some may enjoy it, whether that be the actual process or the outcome after the fact, renovation is one of those things that people may never know how much or how often to opt for it.

But if renovation and general home maintenance is crucial in your eyes, especially if you own an older home, you’re going to want to know how frequently to renovate and how long each renovation may take.

For that reason, our team at Cocoweb.com has some tips for you to help you decide how often a home renovation may be necessary.

Consider the following:

The Age of Your Home

How old your home currently is, is a major determining factor of whether or not your home will need a renovation soon and even how often. More often than not, the age of your home shows through your home’s structure and other elements it features, which is probably why you’ll consider opting for a renovation in the first place.

Does your home have outdated light fixtures, a manual garage door that you wish to replace with an automatic garage door, chipped paint or lead-based paint on the walls, popcorn ceilings, stains on the carpet, and so on? These are not uncommon with older homes in particular.

If have a newer home with some of the latter issues, or perhaps other things that indicate it’s time for a renovation, you may not require a major, or even frequent, home renovations. Sometimes all your home needs is a bit of a touch up.

Repairs Needed

If your home has something that needs to be repaired or replaced, say, every so many months or years – particularly if your home is older – this can help you decide how many renovations you may need or how frequent of renovations your home will require over the months or years. In turn, this can help you plan ahead and save up money prior to such. Although, money is never unlimited.

While some people renovate their home with the goal to give their space a little uplift, your primary goal when renovating your home should be to tend to the features of your home that genuinely need a repair or replacement first and foremost.

But of course, the amount and intensity of your repairs will also be key factors in understanding how many renovations or how long of renovations your home will require. For example, replacing hardwood flooring throughout the entire house is going to be a longer project that just replacing flooring in one room.

If you are planning on renovating the entire or most of the home, plan on renovating sections of your home at a time rather than tackling the whole project at once.

Time

Do you have a particular time in which you would need your renovation to be completed? If you do, and you have the funds to do so, you can complete a large renovation in six months or less.

But say time is a factor that you’re lacking, even with a semi-urgent renovation in the works. Say you work or take care of children full time, making it difficult to find time for a renovation. With limited time on your hands, especially if you will be doing the work, this may indicate that you’ll need to stretch your home renovation over the course of several months if not years.

Time is precious, and if we don’t have enough of it or if we need to condense a renovation into a short period of time, this will affect the length of time necessary to complete the renovation from start to finish. But if you hire others to do the work for you, you can ensure to have the renovation completed quicker, but as a trade-off, you’re going to be spending more money, which brings us to our next point.

Your Budget

On a tight budget? You may not want to renovate you home often unless absolutely necessary. As mentioned, the main focus with a home renovation is to provide the upkeep your home needs, not just want you want your home to acquire.

In the case of a slim budget, if and when you do engage in a home renovation you’re going to want to do it slowly and with strong consideration for the amount of money you currently have and how frequently you can replenish it.

If possible, refrain from opting for loans or borrowing money from family or friend to help you fund your renovation. Only do so if you must engage in an emergency renovation, like, for instance, to tend to mold, remove leaded paint, and the like.

To help you save for current or even future home renovations that need to be completed, consider having a renovation jar. Every time you have extra change in your pocket, slip in into the jar. You’d be surprised at how quickly your jar will fill up, and in turn, be able to fund your next renovation project.

Return on Investment

If you’re hoping to get a good return on your investment with the goal to resale your home greater than what you paid for it, renovations may be the way to go.

In fact, one major reason people frequently renovate their home is for the sole purpose of boosting their home’s value and making it what they personally want, both visually and comfort-wise. A few renovations here and there, such as a bathroom remodel, can do the trick.

However, if your home is older and requires a lot of fix-ups, to get a proper return on your investment, you may require major, frequent renovations from now up until you officially decide to sell your home. These largest renovations will be necessary to make your return on your investment worth it.

For older homes, you may expect to have one to six months-worth of home renovation work completed. You may wish to do this all in one session if you have the funds and time to do so or may stretch it out over the course of a few years until you can accumulate the cash needed to do so.

In the end, make sure you’re making wise renovation decisions. Decide what types of renovations would boost your home’s value the most without, of course, putting you in the hole during the renovation process itself Additionally, if you’re planning on selling your property soon, you’re going to want to squeeze the most valuable renovations in first.

Conclusion

Because every home is different, and every homeowner’s budget varies, there is no exact time that one should opt for a home renovation to keep their home in a safe, up-to-date condition. Some homes are automatically going to need more work than others. Part of it comes down to how well the home is cared for and maintained over the years.

On top of that, factors such as the age of your home, the types and amounts of repairs your home needs, how long it will take to renovate the home, your renovation budget, and your potential return on investment are crucial in deciding if a renovation is necessary soon. Additionally, these factors may help you decide if a renovation or even a move into a new home would be the best route for you.

Home renovation isn’t always easy and can end up being more expensive than expected. That said, make sure to plan ahead and always have a plan b and c just to be on the safe side.

If you need more interior design-related tips and tricks, check out the rest of our blog posts .